Meet Bishop Eaton

The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton was elected as the ELCA’s fourth presiding bishop at the 2013 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. Born in Cleveland on April 2, 1955, Eaton earned a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School...

Luther and Lutheranism

Martin Luther was eight years old when Christopher Columbus set sail from Europe and landed in the Western Hemisphere. Luther was a young monk and priest when Michaelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel in Rome...

ELCA Good Gifts Catalog

Assignment Process

Assignment completes candidacy for all people, including those ordained in another Lutheran church or Christian tradition, moving them toward first call and admittance to the appropriate roster in the ELCA...

Lutheran Tradition and Politics

Paul Jersild

10/01/2004

[1] The two-realm teaching in Lutheran social ethics is
something quite different from the notion of separation of church
and state as it has evolved in the United States political
tradition. It is Luther's attempt to translate his law and
gospel distinction to the public realm featuring the complex life
of society - the province of government, commerce, and cultural
life. For Luther, law is the common coin by which corporate
life is governed and facilitated, in contrast to the realm of
gospel marked by the gentle persuasion of love rather than the
coercion of legal action.

[2] This theological distinction in Luther, however, has some
weighty implications for the political principle that we tend to
describe in terms of church-state separation. Both recognize
that political power and authority are not to be placed in the
hands of those whose exercise of that power is intended to serve
religious interests. For Luther the challenge came from a
politically powerful church, while for us today the challenge comes
from religious zealots who seek to manipulate government in ways
that serve their religious and ideological goals. In both
cases the fallacy is blatant: The gospel is not served by the
exercise of coercion that would impose it on society.

[3] This Lutheran stance speaks directly to the current
political campaign. What we have been witnessing in recent
years is a concerted effort on the part of a segment of Christians
- "The Religious Right" - to gain control of the Republican Party
as an instrument to enact those laws and policies that they believe
serve their religious interests. Thus they forsake the
historic role of religious people as participants in the public
forum, seeking quite properly to influence public policy in ways
that serve the common good. Instead, they are intent on
exercising political authority by identifying their beliefs and
goals with a political party on whom they rely to execute the
necessary laws. Their social agenda, clothed in the language
of "values" and reflecting a conservative ideology, has been
written quite explicitly into the Republican platform. They
have become "religious partisans" on behalf of a political party, a
situation that our heritage as Lutherans would lead us to
repudiate.

[4] The situation in regard to the Democratic Party is quite
different. Its liberal ideology has sharpened the Party's
appreciation of the importance of church-state separation, but too
often this has made Democrats blind to the importance of religion
for the health and well-being of the body politic. The
potential problems posed by religious players on the political
scene make Democrats defensive, often leading to a failure to ask
what appropriate role they might play. Too often Democrats
have even failed to recognize and acknowledge those biblical themes
that give theological and moral support to classic liberal
concerns: Social justice, an inclusive society, and equal
opportunity extended to even the poorest among us. Our
Lutheran heritage would challenge the Democratic Party for its
failure to recognize the legitimate role of religious advocates and
what they can contribute to the welfare of the nation.

[5] The cardinal danger is that whenever religion is mixed with
politics it becomes a means to an end; it is transformed into an
ideology subservient to political interests. But religious
themes can also have a humanizing effect, lifting up imperatives
that hold us all accountable on behalf of the common good,
particularly those who wield political power. In recognizing
that God is sovereign in the public life of the nation, the
Lutheran tradition can speak forcefully to both of these
possibilities.

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